Micro and Macro Barrier Removal
Grow by systematically removing both structural (macro) and friction (micro) barriers.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
A lens for driving growth by classifying barriers into two tiers: macro barriers are structural gates on who can even use the product (must be a college student, must own a smartphone, must have internet), while micro barriers are friction points inside the flows (a required email confirmation step). Growth work is systematically finding and dissolving both.
Origin
Developed thematically by Facebook's growth team across Gleit's tenure.
Core principles
- 01Macro barriers gate access; micro barriers add friction inside the funnel
- 02Removing a macro barrier expands the total addressable audience
- 03Removing a micro barrier improves conversion for existing users
- 04Look for product/technology solutions to problems others solve manually
How to run it
- 1
Map the macro barriers
List the structural requirements that limit who can use the product at all (eligibility, device, connectivity) and remove them one by one.
Pro tip Each macro barrier removed opens a new audience — Facebook went college-only → high school → work networks → any email address.
- 2
Instrument and find micro barriers
Within the flows, use instrumentation to find friction points where users drop off.
Watch out You can only see micro barriers if you've instrumented the funnel first.
- 3
Engineer the friction away
Redesign the flow so the barrier disappears rather than adding another step. Prefer an elegant product fix over forcing the user through the gate.
Pro tip When email confirmation blocked 20% of users, Facebook let unconfirmed accounts receive notifications and counted any click as proof of email ownership — removing the step entirely.
Watch out Adding another prompt (e.g. an SMS) is still a barrier; aim to eliminate the step, not duplicate it.
In the wild
Instrumentation showed 20% of people weren't confirming their email. Instead of nagging them, Facebook allowed unconfirmed accounts to receive notifications, and treated any notification click as an account confirmation because it proved ownership of the email.
→ A major drop-off point was removed by eliminating the confirmation step rather than reinforcing it.
Common mistakes
Duplicating the barrier instead of removing it
Sending an SMS to get around an unconfirmed email just adds a second friction point. The win came from redesigning so the barrier no longer existed.
Is it for you?
Best for
Growth PMs optimizing onboarding and access for a product with strong demand
Not ideal for
Products lacking product-market fit, where removing barriers won't matter because demand isn't there
From the transcript
“the projects that we were working on were really at a high level around removing barriers there were macro barriers”
“what I would say is maybe applicable is really the micro barriers all of the work that we did on growth around optimizing the flows…”
“20% of people aren't actually confirming their email we tried sending them an SMS so maybe they would confirm the SMS instead”
“what we did was allow people to get notifications even as an unconfirmed account and then if they clicked on any of those notifications that…”
From the episode
Meta’s Head of Product (and 29th employee) on working with Mark Zuckerberg, early growth tactics, why PMs are like conductors, and more
Naomi Gleit